


What Can I Get For You?

by petershorcrux



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista Derek Hale, College Student Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Not Beta Read, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Socially Awkward Derek Hale, Vegan Scott McCall, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23306056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petershorcrux/pseuds/petershorcrux
Summary: Derek loves his regulars. The people that he can recognise by seeing the cars they drive park in the little parking lot, the times that they come in; or the gait that he can notice a mile away. He loves his regulars because he can have their cup written and be finished with their cup of coffee before they’re even in the cafe (depending on the modifications that they make to their drinks).But there’s this one regular that he just can’t figure out.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Stiles Stilinski, Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 5
Kudos: 217





	What Can I Get For You?

**Author's Note:**

> bc the world definitely doesn't have enough coffeeshop aus amirite? but ya know, writing is writing so we're gonna let the stories flow.
> 
> i'mmmmmm pretty sure i'll make this into a series of some kind at some point. but until the point comes where i write a part two to this, it's just gonna be its own thing...yeah.

Derek loves his regulars. The people that he can recognise by seeing the cars they drive park in the little parking lot, the times that they come in; or the gait that he can notice a mile away. He loves his regulars because he can have their cup written and be finished with their cup of coffee before they’re even in the cafe (depending on the modifications that they make to their drinks).

But there’s this one regular that he just can’t figure out. 

He recognises the Jeep. He knows the times he usually comes in—on week days around 2:00 because he has a forty-five minute break between his classes and that allows him a moment’s reprieve to come into the shop and relax, drink his coffee (maybe eat a scone or muffin) and then head back to the campus right across from the cafe; on weekends he usually comes in some anytime after 8am to study. 

He knows his name because he always asks for it every time Stiles orders his drinks. He asks because he likes the way that the name comes out of Stiles’s mouth. Stiles had called him out on it once. 

“You don’t know my name by, now, Derek?” He’d chuckled and smiled crookedly at Derek.

Derek wouldn’t admit that his heart picked up a little bit at Stiles using his name, kind of always did. And he definitely wouldn’t admit to the blush he could feel on the tips of his ears as he’d mumbled something and started working on Stiles’s drinks instead of giving him an excuse.

Stiles may stay there until close; maybe his friend, Scott, will come and sit with him for an hour or so. Scott gets the same thing more or less, a medium mocha with vanilla powder on the whip cream; soy milk and non-dairy whip cream. 

“Scotty-boy is a vegan,” Stiles told him once when he was ordering his and Scott’s drink. Derek hadn’t asked but Stiles had still supplied that information like it was something he thought Derek would want to know. It wasn’t. 

Derek grunted and worked away at their drinks—Stiles had wanted a strawberry banana smoothie with protein powder. He’d asked for chocolate chips in it and when Derek had pulled a face he scratch his cheek and sheepishly said never mind. Derek had included the chocolate chips and when Stiles noticed as he picked up the drinks when Derek called his name he’d grinned so wide that Derek thought his cheeks would tear.

He recognises the kid’s gait as a frenetic and almost horrifying in the way Derek is always half afraid his legs will give out like a newborn deer and he’ll just fall and spill his coffee everywhere. When he talks it’s in a way that almost doesn’t make sense as he jumps from one topic to another in quick succession and sometimes Derek has trouble making the same connections between topics like the kid is able to do so quickly. But then he catches on just when Stiles is about to ask ‘does that make sense?’ and Derek is able to nod along. Stiles smiles like Derek’s paid him some sort of compliment.

Sometimes Derek can catch him staring at him in between taking his customer’s orders when he’s flashing his smile or teasingly flirting with the older women that come in. (Some of the women, Derek can tell, don’t even like coffee but come in to see the hot barista). And it made this a little more interesting because this made for something else that Derek would want to figure out. 

The annoying thing about this regular is that he doesn’t have a particular drink that he always orders when he comes in. It changes every day; literally every day. He’d ordered an americano once, on Derek’s suggestion, and hadn’t seemed to like it initially but had worked his way to finishing the entire thing. That, however, may have been a mistake on Derek’s part. Because the kid…already had enough energy—enough energy for the two of them—and his energy on an americano surpassed maybe that of everyone in the cafe that day. But then Stiles had come the next day and told Derek about how hard he’d crashed. 

Apparently, he’d completely passed out in his Chemistry class and his professor, who already wasn’t the biggest fan of Stiles, took maybe a little too much joy in nagging him about it. And did so for the next two weeks—Stiles made sure to keep Derek up to date on that. Stiles wasn’t even sure why he had to take Chemistry, he’d told Derek, it had nothing at all to do with his major so maybe the entire university was out to get him in a way, then. Derek had rolled his eyes at that. 

Derek genuinely felt bad about that, even though he laughed at Stiles’s distressed expression throughout his retelling of the story the next day. But he did give Stiles his order for free that day—Scott’s regular drink, the mocha with vanilla powder on the whip cream (extra whip cream), he even went dairy free and all. When he took his first sip he actually looked surprised. A little of the whip cream and vanilla powder caught on his lip and Derek was uncharacteristically distracted by that when the kid started chatting him up again. Even Stiles did stop talking just long enough to laugh nervously and ask if he had something on his face, to which Derek nodded and tapped his top lip in the spot where the whip cream was melting down from Stiles’s cupid bow. Stiles watched the motion, seemingly as distracted by that single action as Derek was by the tantalising non-dairy topping on the kid’s lip. 

Stiles licked the whipped cream off his lip slowly, maybe a bit too slowly, and then flashed Derek a grin. “Got it?” he’d asked sheepishly, after a moment of silence between the two of them. It took Derek a second but he eventually nodded.

And Stiles continued with his talking as usual.

—

“Okay,” Stiles started the second he reached the counter, “I’m—” he stopped the second he saw what Derek was doing, which was making whipped cream.

Making whipped cream may have been Derek’s least favourite thing about this job. He’s not a people person but he still doesn’t hate the talking to people part of the job, if anything he thinks he’s needed the social practise of working in a cafe. What he hated about making the whipped cream was the mess that he always seemed to make on his apron. One time he’d even dropped the canister and had made an entire mess of his side of counter; he could say that he was lucky that Stiles wasn’t there that day because he knows what a kick he would have gotten out of that.

Derek waits for Stiles to continue, place his order, ask Derek a random question; begin griping about his day or Chemistry professor. But when Stiles doesn’t he slows his shaking the canister and looks over at him with a quirked eyebrow.

“Uh,” Stiles tried and failed to continue, “never mind.” He turned on his heel a little and took up his usual spot in the cafe—the only consistent thing about his coming here. 

The spot he preferred was a nice one, a lot of sunlight during the day that Derek imagined was nice to feel, especially during the winter for the extra warm against the cold. Derek didn’t spend much time in the cafe after or before his shifts, the only times he was here otherwise was to help stock. He considered that not working because he didn’t really have to deal with customers and he actually kind of like doing the counts for the day. And also with a family owned business, you’re usually gonna get called in to do something every now and again. 

The cafe was air conditioned but it was an old building, so that spot of Stiles’s was probably one of the best. And as the sunlight streamed in through the floor to ceiling window it created a kind of radiance effect surrounding Stiles. The paleness of his skin reflects the sunlight and the moles spotting his arms (when Stiles wasn’t wearing an oversized flannel) became that much more apparent. The way his fingers danced over the keyboard of his laptop of wrote fervently at his notepad reminded Derek from a distance how much energy the kid had because once he started he didn’t stop for a long time unless he got stuck and Derek observed that Stiles getting stuck on something was pretty uncommon. He imagined that even when Stiles got stuck he barrelled on until he wrote his way out of something.

Derek would almost call the kid beautiful when he’s like that. Well, he’s not ugly otherwise, Derek thinks that he’s actually kind of cute. And there have been some nights where he’s had dreams of him and the kid kissing—Nope. Derek can’t think like that. Well, there’s nothing stopping him—aside from the whole Stiles being a college senior thing. He just feels as though it’s never a good idea to get too attached to the regulars—which he definitely already is on some level, not that he will admit that to himself. But at the same time, he’s isn’t exactly sure why he won’t allow himself that.

He’s seen Cora and Laura get numbers from regulars all the time. And they’ve even told him about the dates that they’ve gone on with them. Most of them…are bad dates, but Cora and Laura seem to take it all in stride. They’re good like that. Derek…is not. He hasn’t dated someone in what one could describe as…a hot minute. Doesn’t really bother him. And he also has to remember that he doesn’t have to date Stiles, he could just go on one date with him or hook up with him, or any other manner of things. But he has to admit to himself that maybe he would want to end up dating Stiles because for the mild level of annoyance that the kid brings to his life, there’s something that draws Derek to him.

So, there’s something about Stiles that kind of makes Derek not want to ruin the thing between them. That thing being…Derek being Stiles’s barista, so really…not that much of a thing. It’s actually kind of a common thing under capitalism and all that. But whatever. 

There’s a sacredness to this, he supposes. He’s really just blowing that out of his ass, he knows it. He’s glad he hasn’t told Laura or Cora about this little…crush? he has on Stiles. Cora especially. Because Cora would definitely have forced him to ask the kid out or, even worse, probably have flat out told Stiles that Derek had a thing (whatever the thing was) for him. And then Derek would combust. And then it’d all be over, he’d never take another drink order pulled from out of the air from Stiles again. Stiles, who probably didn’t think about him outside of this sad, small coffee shop. Because who would.

Once Derek has finished making the whipped cream to cover the rest of his shift, and enough to cover the college kid rush in the morning, he brushes his hands down his apron (because, again, he always makes a mess) and looks over at Stiles. Stiles is already enraptured in something on his laptop and doesn’t see that Derek is looking at over at him. Which means it falls to Derek…to initiate conversation. Great.

He tries a clearing his throat first. It gets the attention of the one of the other three people in the cafe at the moment and Derek isn’t sure how to communicate to them that he’s actually trying to get Stiles’s attention so he just goes for glaring at them which does effectively get them to turn their attention back to their book. And maybe also get the cafe a bad Yelp review.

“Stiles,” Derek calls as he’s quick to come to the conclusion that there isn’t anything he can do to avoid calling out.

Stiles perks up in response and looks over before shuffling over from his spot at the window with that odd gait of his, the light from the window giving him a halo effect the entire time he walks over.

“Derek,” Stiles says back and it almost feels intimate and Derek mentally reprimands himself for letting something as simple as that trip him up. Stiles smiles at Derek warmly and that he’s allowed to feel something about, he could not care less if his brain wants to fight him on that one.

“What can I get for you?” He asks in response and smiles back at Stiles. He doesn’t miss the dusting of a blush that flares across Stiles’s face.

**Author's Note:**

> [rebloggable on tumblr](https://petershorcrux.tumblr.com/post/613527652359454720/what-can-i-get-for-you)


End file.
